Question about Hags: Mimicry and Invisible Passage

[Skeats]

I'm currently planning a semi-boss encounter for a 2nd level party of 7 players with a (debuffed/young) hag with a few giant spider pets, and while considering the potential tactics from the party, there are a couple of grey areas I could do with some advice on.

My first question is on Mimicry:

Mimicry: The hag can mimic animal sounds and humanoid voices. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Insight) check.

My plan is that the party hear from a distance a woman calling for help, so I'd presume that the hag would be using mimicry to sound less Hag-ish. The rules as writ sound like just hearing the voice gives the players an auto insight check, and with seven players at the table the odds of at least one of them being successful are pretty good - and thus figuring out the ruse too early into the encounter. Or should it be that the party have to ask for insight checks when they come across the woman? One of the party members has a passive insight of 14, so do they auto-detect hag mimicry?

My second question is on Invisible Passage:

Invisible Passage: The hag magically turns invisible until she attacks or casts a spell, or until her concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell). While invisible, she leaves no physical evidence of her passage, so she can be tracked only by magic. Any equipment she wears or carries is invisible with her.

I'm expecting during the battle that the Hag will use this feature, and what I get from this rule is that players can attempt to attack a location having disadvantage if they guessed correct, or auto-missing if they guessed wrong. However, I'm also expecting the Paladin to use Divine Sense to discover the hag's location, which he then can attack at disadvantage. My question is, for the rest of the players in initiative who see the Paladin swing his sword at nothing (and miss the hag), is it mechanically reasonable for them to attack the same location when they do not have a magical means of tracking the invisible hag? I'm not 100% on what to do here as if a round last 6 seconds, the player after the paladin would be moving along side him while he makes his attack, unlikely knowing what the paladin's purpose was until the following round?

It's not that I'm trying to preemptively save the hag from the encounter, as I fully expect her to perish, what I am trying to preserve is the drama of the encounter which has something of a horror theme, with battle hopefully changing location as the hag escapes into a cave.

How would you handle the situation?

[Kalashak]

I would expect the party to know something is wrong with the voice, but unless you explicitly tell them "This is a hag" they're still going in without knowing what waits for them. As for the second one, Divine Sense won't help them as hags are (mostly) not Celestials, Fiends, or Undead. Even if it did work, if you tried to tell them they had no reason to know the hag was there the Paladin would likely just...tell the rest of them where she is.

[Skeats]

I would expect the party to know something is wrong with the voice, but unless you explicitly tell them "This is a hag" they're still going in without knowing what waits for them. As for the second one, Divine Sense won't help them as hags are (mostly) not Celestials, Fiends, or Undead. Even if it did work, if you tried to tell them they had no reason to know the hag was there the Paladin would likely just...tell the rest of them where she is.

Ah, quite right, for some reason I had it in my head that Divine Sense could also detect fey...

Okay, it just seems like the mimicry is a bit of a redundant feature if that is the case, and would expect a hag (and it is a green hag I'm using) would be better at disguising itself, so to speak.

[Lunali]

For the insight check, I would instead roll d20+4 versus the characters' passive insight since asking for an insight check makes it hard for players to not metagame. Alternatively have them auto succeed if their passive is 14+ and let them roll if they're suspicious on their own.

Unless you houserule it (which many do) invisibility gives disadvantage on the attack, it does not prevent people from knowing location. To hide your location you would have to also use the hide action. The lack of physical evidence of passing is for pursuit of such a creature rather than for combat.

[Son of A Lich!]

In my experience, Hags are great low level bosses...

In the sense that they need minions and rely on them heavily.

...

Hags aren't great in combat and typically hate being banished back to the feywilds. A Hag in combat is a Hag that screwed something up in her scheming; as a DM, you should put this obvious bare scale in her grand plan and softly lead the players to it.

Fortunately, between their strange magic and ferocious spite for everything, Hags are flexible in creating short or long term adventures around. They practically sneeze plot devices out like candy to unsuspecting children and most standard tools of the trade for adventurers are quickly misled by the fact that Hags don't quite make sense.

Plot devices are your greatest tools here. Start with a goal - What does she ultimately want, and what is the most malicious way of getting there?

Auntie Knucklebone is a green hag hiding in the thistle woods outside of the small town of Dunbier. Dunbier is a farming town with a lush and vibrant vegetable selection, squashes, carrots, and so forth. For the bulk of their income, they harvest barley and make some beer locally, but the town is too small for a large scale brewing rig and the water is better served for irrigation.

Auntie Knucklebone knows that the townsfolk practice a harvest festival where the tap the local beer kegs and make a variety of dishes from the vegetables. She aims to spike the beer with a powerful poison/potion that will turn the townsfolk into scarecrow/zombie like monsters while they are still (Somewhat) alive/conscious.

To accomplish this, she needs to ...

Lure the Brewmaster to her do her biding.

Perfect her concoction.

Get rid of the children who don't drink beer (they could cause a ruckus in her fun).

Plot hooks should start pouring out of her cauldron at this point; She kills the Brewmaster's wife (Or has her killed by local... goblins, red caps, Spiders, Townsfolk in debt to Auntie Knucklebone for 'saving' their child... whatever, go nuts and have fun), and uses voice mimicry and Message spells to give him ghastly premonitions from beyond the grave. She charms traveling merchants to give them haunted corn cob dolls, given away to children. Then the dolls start sowing doubts and distrust among the youth, and the kids start fighting one another (Think Crown of Madness modified to the scenario). She needs the molded rime of a buttersquash to give the potion it's punch, and the fields come alive with cotton like mold growth. The local towncrier wanders back into town, moaning painfully as his bones seem replaced with thorny branches and his eyes bleed an almost-black, blue ichor.

Seriously, The players ain't in Waterdeep anymore, get weird.

Flavor it with odd interactions of classic spells and abilities to give it a strange and unearthly qualities (Like detect magic makes the mold 'sing' a soft dirge that only the spell caster can hear, for example. Nothing that is too out of the ordinary in terms of game balance, or it will make fights weird) and from there, let the players find solutions to the problems by letting them just try something crazy. This should lead to the players uncovering the Hag's lair, and she should be in panic. Not because she didn't think she was going to be uncovered, but because she knows the players aren't going to let her have fun. Suffering is her purpose, suffering is what she enjoys and hopefully leading an otherwise good-natured person to act in spite and lash out. Just another larva for the grey wastes, that is.

Hags are awesome and good, fun, villains. Don't fret about the play by play in the final fight, set the mood and tone far in advance of ever, actually, meeting the Hag.

If you have ever had encounters or experience with running Dreamscape planes, Walking into a Hag's playground should almost feel like lucid dreaming right before the dream turns nightmare-ish. like a building crescendo that never quite comes. Bad things, strange things, are happening, but the purpose behind it is so abstract and arcane that trying to understand it just feels more wrong somehow.

...

Oh, and death isn't really death... They just need to hitch a ride back to the material plane... and they know a group of naughty folks who should learn to respect their Auntie...

[Skeats]

Thanks guys, great advice and definitely some food for thought.

The party is essentially looking into the mysterious disappearance of halfling children and clues lead to the local woods. I've kinda gone for a general Blair Witch vibe for it with the party arrive at areas of the woods where clues create more questions, and nighttime being more psychologically unnerving. Ultimately, the hag is fairly young and inexperienced by comparison to the average hag. She's only recently started preying on the halflings and is overconfident that she is relatively protected from her woodlands home (a forest locally known to avoid at all costs as it's steeped in a gloomy history). The last thing she is expecting is adventures to show up, so when she discovers that they are pretty much on her doorstep, she throws together a quick plan to deceive them. However, her giant spider pets are her "babies", and she'll attempt to defend them.

There is then the potential to leave it open to more powerful hag(s) or coven(s) getting involved down the road.

I'll definitely think about adding in some of these elements. Thanks again.

[DrKerosene]

I believe there is a precedent for some traps (and other things) to have their normal DC get a +5 versus Passive scores. So maybe you can rule that is relevant here.

Also, if the Hag is not mimicking anyone the party knows, or an animal, I don’t think the Party needs to be making such checks.


Hags are great harriers, hit someone with a Vicious Mockery at max range, move away and behind cover, then go invisible and flee for a minute or so. Repeat, and occasionally use Mimicry to lure or separate the PCs. Include some light fog to aid the Hag.

[Telok]

Assuming I did the math right, with 7 players the chance for at least one to roll 14+ on a d20 is about 95% and even with just 3 players rolling the chance of a 14+ should be about 72%. I'd say that the insight roll should only happen if they question what they hear, otherwise it's essentially useless. Those numbers assume that the characters are not proficent in insight ans have +0 wisdom modifiers.

For the stealth check, her beating all characters perception happens about half the time if the characters can locate her only on rolling 19+.